


Glass and Iron

by Menzosarres



Series: Glass and Iron [1]
Category: Maleficent (2014)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-06
Updated: 2014-06-06
Packaged: 2018-02-03 14:55:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,126
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1748630
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Menzosarres/pseuds/Menzosarres
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Prompt: Aurora is constantly asking Maleficent to leave the moors just for a moment with her so she could finally show her her kingdom and finally after a little persuasion she agrees but only for a little while.</p>
<p>Summary: Technically what the above prompt asked for, just with a bit more angst than originally intended. Aurora finds out just what it means to be the queen of two kingdoms, and ruling half without Maleficent at her side may prove more than she is prepared for.</p>
<p>Originally posted on tumblr.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Glass and Iron

_“Please_?” Aurora begged, offering Maleficent her most adorable pout and batting her eyes in a way that had won her more than one argument over the past year. “The riots have stopped, the last of the war trials have finished, and rebuilding is already underway. Won’t you come with me?”

She had been begging since the first time her new queenship had required her to spend time back in the heart of the human kingdom. Leaving behind the sanctuary of the Moors had been terrifying enough before she learned Maleficent wouldn’t be joining her, and those three months had been some of the darkest of her life. She had never felt more alone than in that haunted tower of iron and betrayal. She was surrounded day in and day out by men bearing spears which, no matter how readily they had sworn fealty to her, she could picture only as tools of cruelty, her mind playing tricks and casting the iron tips in shades of burning sunrise crimson, as bright and glowing as they had been when Maleficent had lain beneath them.

She had returned to the Moors subdued, spine rigid as she rode her horse across the barren track of land where the wall of thorns had once cast its tangled shadow, but when Maleficent had opened her wings and arms to her, she had crumpled into the safety she felt there, and the tears she shed seemed to cleanse away all the darkness she had seen.

The next time the kingdom demanded more of her attention than she could give from the haven of the faerie realms, she had begged and pleaded once again for Maleficent to travel with her. Something like pain had darted across her face, but the dark faerie had only answered with a slow shake of her head. “But why?” Aurora had asked. “I can’t do this without you,” she added, voice breaking.

“I’m sorry, little Beastie,” came the soft reply. “It isn’t time.”

“Don’t call me that,” Aurora had snapped, angry at the evasive answer, but not angry enough to turn away from the comfort Maleficent offered when her anger gave way to reluctant tears at the thought of what her departure would bring the next morning. She fell asleep on the floor of her own throne room, her head in Maleficent’s lap, gentle fingers tracing aimless paths through her hair. It was the first peaceful sleep she had had since her return.

She couldn’t say if her second visit was better or worse. She felt stronger at the start, strong enough to start commanding more than just the simplest of rebuilding tasks recommended by her advising council. She ordered a kingdom wide ban on iron weapons. The resulting riots kept her far from home for the next three months, but she eventually began to live up to her name, earning the trust and the beginnings of love from her people as she sent out the restless army with gold from the castle’s stores to repay those citizens from whom they confiscated illegal weaponry. She spent so much of her time trying to do her best for a people she had never known in a kingdom that she still felt alienated from that she had little time to change the oppressive air of her own castle, and as she rode away from its walls on her return to the Moors, it cast a dark shadow across the small seed of new growth she felt she had planted in the kingdom surrounding it. “By the time I return,” she called to the captain of the guard, her voice hard with that edge of poisonous iron she had learned to wield in her short time among men, “I want that castle burned to the ground.”  

Back in the Moors, she didn’t cry, nor did she race into Maleficent’s arms. She approached slowly, coming to stand in front of the dark faerie and wishing she still felt enough like a child that she could pass on these burdens to the woman before her. Maleficent let a single finger rest beneath her chin, tilting her head up and forcing the young queen to meet her gaze. “What have they done to you?” she whispered.

Aurora jerked away. “I’m one of  _them_ , remember?”

Maleficent flinched back, and the look of pain on her face brought the nightmares fresh to the surface of Aurora’s mind, that pain just the same as the pain of the iron burns she had once withstood to save her. “I’m sorry,” Aurora said softly. “I’m just tired.” As a final peace offering, she finally added, “I’ve missed you.”

Ruling the Moors in this between time was pure healing for the young queen. Maleficent seemed determined to chase away all the things she had seen in the human kingdom, teaching her the name of every type of faerie she now ruled and entrancing her for hours with tales of the farthest reaches of the realms. A year passed before she was called away, a year for her to forget her anger and to reclaim some bit of her innocence, but when it came time to leave, she felt every bit of the weight she had put aside return to her shoulders.

It was the moment to beg, to plead, insisting, “The riots have stopped, the last of the war trials have finished, and rebuilding is already underway. Won’t you come with me?”

Maleficent was silent for a long moment, and her voice was heavy when she finally replied. “I’m afraid, Beastie.” It had been some time since she had used that nickname.

“You’re not afraid of anything!” Aurora retorted, and Maleficent smiled at the rare glimpse of childlike naivety in those words.

“I’m afraid that… humans are…” It was the first time Aurora had seen her at such a loss for words. Her wings rustled restlessly, flexing and shifting behind her as she paced beneath the trees. “You are not your father. You are everything that is beautiful and pure in this world and seeing you in a cage of iron ruling over the sons of indulgence and greed would break me. I would see one of them raise his voice at you and it would take all of my strength to keep from snapping his neck. Should one of them so much as touch you I… I would never let you return. I would steal you away raise the thorns once more and you would never leave me—leave the Moors again.”

Aurora stood in stunned silence at the raw fire in that confession, the blaze of anger and furious power glowing behind Maleficent’s eyes.

“And I know you will be a great queen,” she added, “and so I must let you leave.”

She celebrated her nineteenth birthday in the gardens of her new palace. She had returned to the start of a construction project just as dark and heavy as the last and she had ordered it torn down, calling in the faerie craftsmen to work with the human glassblowers and create for her a shrine of living oak pillars and gleaming walls of tinted glass. Her guards nearly had an aneurism over how vulnerable the space would leave her, but she was queen, and she had always felt that impenetrable walls only offered so much safety from a people who loathed their ruler. She would rather be vulnerable and at peace and offer trust in the hopes that it would be returned.

Still, despite the revelry in the streets below as the people celebrated their third year of peace and the growing prosperity their bond with the faerie folk had created, she sat alone on her bed, staring at the only dark glass in the entire palace; two curves of raw, faintly glowing umber casting wing-shaped shadows across the floor surrounded by a sea of blue as fragile as the sky.

“Hello, Beastie. I got your letter.”

Aurora leapt to her feet and spun around, gasping in delight as she saw Maleficent silhouetted in the door to her chambers. “You came!”

The dark faerie chuckled as she was nearly knocked over with the enthusiasm of the hug she received in greeting. Aurora breathed in deeply, feeling the last lingering tension leave her spine as she felt those impossibly soft feathers fold in around her shoulders. Even on her last visit to the Moors, there had been a distance between them, both physical and emotional, and she had forgotten how small she felt in these arms.

“Of course I came.” She pulled back, turning in the flickering rainbows cast by the last rays of the setting sun. “After hearing about this wonder I couldn’t stay away.”

There was a hint of underlying nervousness in her voice, a protective hunch to her shoulders, and Aurora gently took one of the faerie’s hands in her own. “It’s a different kingdom, now,” she whispered.

Maleficent slowly nodded. “I believe you. I… your letter…” She tugged a well-worn scrap of parchment from the pocket of her trousers. Aurora smiled as she scanned her own words.

_Remember how dark the Moors were when you lost your wings? But still full of life, still glowing with the subdued magic of all the other faeries who just wanted to see you happy again? This kingdom has been like that, but for far too long. Stefan was darker than you could ever have dreamed of becoming, and he was one of many in a line of dark, cruel kings. It took me some time, but I’ve learned to see the light in the people here. To see more than the iron. I can’t undo decades of darkness in three short years, but I’ve done what I can, and I’d like you to see. You are the only one whose judgment I actually care about. And I miss you. Every day._

_If I could have anything for my birthday, it would be to hear you call me ‘Beastie’ again._

_xx_

_Aurora._

“I’m only sorry I stayed away so long,” Maleficent finally said, breaking the silence.

Aurora gently squeezed the hand she still held. “That’s alright. I needed to… grow up. You’ve been my safety for so long and… if I didn’t do some of this on my own, I’d have been a pretty terrible queen.” She chuckled with only a hint of bitterness. “If you had spirited me off to the Moors I don’t think I’d have put up much of a fight, and my people deserved better than that…” she trailed off at the odd look on Maleficent’s face. “What?”

The faerie shook herself. “Nothing… just…” One side of her lips quirked up in a smile. “You sound like a queen.”

Aurora felt herself blush at the sincerity in Maleficent’s voice and she slowly returned the smile. “Is that a good thing?”

“Oh, yes,” she murmured. “Seeing you here… all grown and alive with how very much a queen you have become… Yes. Because it means I can do this.”

And those lips that had haunted her dreams in so many different ways were pressing into her own, those slender hands finding a resting place on her waist and pulling her near, close enough that she could feel the heat of a cocoon of wings on every side. There were hundreds of images in her mind and all of them were of Maleficent – leaning over her as she wakened from her sleep like death, screaming in pain and fury as she fought for her life, soaring away into the sky as the treetops trembled behind her, and holding Aurora close as though her shoulders could take every burden the young queen had ever carried. Each of those moments faded into the pure heat of this one sure touch, and as Maleficent drew back, Aurora whimpered, wondering if this was the closest she would ever know to the touch of iron.  

They stood in each other’s arms for a long moment after their lips parted. Finally, Aurora asked, “Will you stay, just for a few days? I’m almost ready to go home but—”

Maleficent silenced her by tapping a finger against her lip before gently cupping her face. “Of course. For now, though, you look as though you haven’t slept in months.” Aurora turned away, not wanting to prove her exhaustion by yawning. Maleficent chuckled softly and shook her head. “I think you ought to rest, little Beastie.” She brushed her lips against the younger woman’s once again, and the last thing Aurora saw was the flash of golden sparks she couldn’t quite imitate no matter how finely the glass walls of her castle were spun, before she fell slowly into Maleficent’s arms, and fell softly into sleep. 


End file.
